When demand exceeds supply, increasing operational capacity makes a lot of sense. You certainly don't want buyers taking their business elsewhere, simply because you cannot keep up with orders.

In addition, smaller operations may be missing out on orders for no other reason than limited capacity. These are both good reasons to consider expansion, although you'll want to be sure there will be sufficient and long term demand to cover your investments.

Keep in mind that, just because you've increased operational capacity, there are no guarantees that you will see immediate increases in sales volumes and annual revenues. You will also need to increase sales activity by identifying and exploring new markets, confirming and proving value, and creating undeniable appeal for key buyers.

If you are relying on exports to increase sales, it helps to identify those countries with a buying population receptive to your offer. This could be decided by research - taking note of obvious needs, cultural similarities, distances from your factory, costs of delivery, projected demand, or ease of doing business. When you focus your attention on these carefully defined markets and attributes, you can better channel and manage your marketing activities and set expectations for meaningful return on investments.

From a marketing perspective, and in all cases, you'll want to be sure your brand is visible, understood, valued and trusted. This requires a strategic and tactical approach that maintains constant, relevant, appealing and engaging contact with buyers.

For existing customers, you'll want to implement promotional activity that retains their business - rewarding loyalty and finding new ways to keep the relationship fresh and vital. At the same time, you'll need to entice new customers with an appealing and competitive brand presence and provocative sales incentives.

At Studio Spear, we rely on market research to identify key audiences and the issues that must be communicated to win their business. With this information, we organize wide reaching public relations, an engaging online presence, targeted advertising campaigns, impactful participation at trade shows, and other such tactics to enhance brand appeal and influence sales.

An important note for producers of packaged goods: In many markets, it is prudent to update or even completely overhaul brand imagery and on-shelf presentations. At the very least, there may be government imposed compliance issues that must be addressed that will impact the printing of your labels. Since this impacts manufacturing, doing your homework in advance of factory expansion is prudent.

The bottom line is that, just because you make investments in infrastructure and increase capacity, there are no guarantees that a proportionate increase in sales will follow. To be truly successful, there needs to be a well managed, consistent and ongoing sales and marketing effort.

If you have newly expanded and/or untapped capacity, are eager to increase sales, but lack the brand presence to attract attention and offset competitive threats, Studio Spear has the strategic and creative talent to help you satisfy these objectives. For more information, call: 866 787 8761 - ask for Jeff Spear. You can also contact Jeff via email: jeff@studiospear.com.

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